The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi

[528] For example Papini La Storia di S. Francesco, t. I, p. 130, n. 8, Grisar, see Civilta Cattolicà, fasc. 1098 (1896), p. 723; Mgr. Faloci Pulignani, Misc. Franc., t. VI (1895), p. 34; Fr. Edouard d’Alençon, La Benediction de St. François; M. Sabatier, Spec. Perf., pp. lxvii-lxx; Reginald Balfour, The Seraphic Keepsake; and Montgomery Carmichael,La Benedizione di San Francesco. See also Fr. Saturnino da Caprese, O.F.M., Guida Illustrate della Verna (Prato, 1902), p. 93. On the testimony of three leading German palæographers, Wattenbach, Dziatzko and Meyer, see Theol. Literatur-Zeitung, Leipzig, 1895, PP. 404 and 627.

[529] Says Celano: “The sign thau was more familiar to him than other signs. With it only he signed sheets for despatch and he painted it on the walls of the cells anywhere.” SeeTr. de Miraculis, in Anal. Boll., t. xviii, pp. 114-115.

[530] “He signed it upon all the letters he directed.” See Bonav. Leg. Maj., IV, 3.

[531] These words seem to he transposed in the autograph.

[532] From this point to the end of the Praises the autograph is illegible.

[533] See Num. 6: 24-26.

[534] Mr. Balfour points out that the position of. Leo’s name in relation to the thau is intentional and that the thau thus becomes a cross of blessing, St. Francis, following the practice of all old Missals and Breviaries, having placed it so as to divide the name of the person blessed. See The Seraphic Keepsake, p. 106.

[535] See 2 Cel. 3, 138-139, and 1 Cel. 80.

[536] See Cherancé, Life of St. Francis, p. 260.

[537] See on this head Ozanam, Les Poètes Franciscains, p. 82, and Matthew Arnold, Essays on Criticism, pp. 243-248. Mr. Arnold’s translation of the Canticle is well known.

[538] For a list of the more important studies on it, see Speculum Perfectionis (ed. Sabatier), p. 289; L. Suttina, Appunti bibliografici di studi francescani, p. 19; also Gasparry’sItalian Literature to the death of Dante, p. 358.

[539] See his St. Francis of Assisi, p. 235, note 2.

[540] See Nouvelles Etudes d’histoire religieuse, p. 331.

[541] Vie de S. François, p. xxxiv and chap. xviii.

[542] This text was published by Fr. Panfilo da Magliano, O.F.M., in his Storia Compendiosa, also by M. Sabatier in his Vie de S. François and later in his Speculum, pp. 334-35.

[543] Professor Boehmer published the text of the Maz. MS. 1350 in his Sonnengesang v. Fr. d’A., in 1871.

[544] I have had the advantage of studying two of the oldest MSS. of this work known,—those of the convents of La Verna and Portiuncula.

[545] It was soon after the canonization of St. Clare, about 1256, that Celano undertook the task of compiling this legend by order of Alexander IV.

[546] See Acta S.S., t. II, Aug., p. 761.

[547] See Little in Opuscules, t. I, p. 276.

[548] See Spec. Perf. (ed. Sabatier), p. cxcvi.

[549] See Opuscules, t. I, p. 55. This MS. contains only the first part of the Office; it ends with the words the “Lord hath reigned.”

[550] See above, p. 3-4. Other MSS. containing the Office are enumerated by Wadding. See also Boehmer’s Analekten.

[551] The Oxford Codex here reads “until Easter Sunday.”

[552] “Et toto conatu fuerunt solliciti annulare scripta beati patris nostri Francisci, in quibus sua intentio de observantia regulae declaratur.”—See Archiv., III, pp. 168-169.

[553] We need not despair of finding others; the Clares’ archives have mostly escaped spoliation.

[554] See Spec. Perf. (ed. Sabatier), c. 108, and ed. Lemmens, c. 18. See also the Conformities (I, fol. 185)

[555] See 2 Cel. 3, 99.

[556] See 1 Cel. 82. See also Leg III Soc., 67, where the Incipit of the letters is given.

[557] De Adventu Minorum in Angliam. See Mon. Germ. Hist., Script., t. XXVIII, p. 563, and Anal. Franc., t. I, p. 232, note 4. See also Fr. Cuthbert’s translation of Eccleston, p. 64.

[558] Prof. Herkless in his Francis and Dominic, p. 54, cites some passages from a letter which St. Francis “wrote to his friends at Bologna “ in 1228. One searches in vain for any trace of such a letter among the early collections of St. Francis’ writings.

[559] See ed. Acta S.S., no. 20.

[560] See Anal. Franc., t. III, p. 132.

[561] Vie de S. François, p. 322.

[562] See Opuscules, fasc. x, p. 128, note 1.

[563] Die Quellen, etc., p. 20. He places its composition between 1222 and 1225.

[564] Analekten, p. vii.

[565] In the Liegnitz MS. and the Vatican Codex 4354 the present letter is addressed fratri Antonio episcopo meo, which corresponds with the direction given by Celano (2 Cel. 3, 99).

[566] On this letter see also Papini (Storia, t. I, p. 118, n. 1), Müller (Anfänge, p. 103), Lempp (Zeitschrift, t. XII, pp. 425, 438), Lepitre (S. Antoine, p. 73), and de Kerval (S. Antonii, etc., p. 259, n. 1).

[567] Another less well known letter to St. Antony, giving him permission “to build a church near the city wall of Patti,” is sometimes attributed to St. Francis. But the text is most improbable and gives rise to colossal historic difficulties. See Lepitre, S. Antoine, p. 120, note, and Fr. Edouard d’Alençon, Etudes Franc., t. XII, p. 36r.